Light Up Ahead
by obi-glasses
Summary: Even the worst situation can become good in a moment's notice. Especially when you have someone both terrifying and kind to defend you.


Nobody really knew much about the early life of Throttle. Carbine knew that he'd been in a home for orphans for a little while, and that both of his parents had died, but that was the extent of it. Even when they had touched minds, as a sort of birthday gift to each other (they'd been born in the same week) Throttle had firmly cut off that part of his mind to her. She didn't question him.

Especially after he'd said that her sleep would better if she didn't know.

"_Daddy! Don't leave me!_"

"_He's only eight years old, for goddess' sake! Don't you people know better than to separate a child from his parent that early?"_

_"DADDY!"_

_"Don't.. take him from me.."_

It was a accident that started the downfall. The government-owned factory where Throttle's father worked had been poorly maintained since the budget cuts, which was why the smelter that Piston tended had exploded unexpectedly.

Piston's right eye and both hands had been violently amputated in the span of four seconds.

His fellow workers had taken him to a hospital, where the mouse had been bandaged, pumped full of antibiotics. But nobody could reattach his hands, or replace his eye. They didn't have robotics back then.

So, while Throttle had been visiting his somewhat-woozy-father, the Martian equivalent of Child Services had come in and said that custody of Throttle had been transferred to the government. As far as they were concerned, Throttle was a orphan now, especially since he had no 'qualified' (read: no criminal record) relatives or a mother (she had died when he was three).

Off to the orphanage with him, then. Despite the complaints from his father, his father's buddies (and their wives) and the doctor present.

The doors seemed so tall.

And the bed was so damn hard.

The food was okay, though- about a month after he arrived, they'd switched to a high-nutrition chunky soup. Also, two other boys had mysteriously gone missing. He'd asked about that, and he'd gotten a glare in reply and a ominous tap of the cane.

Physical time rolled around, and Throttle knew better than to get trapped in the doctor's office. No physical took five hours, or three nurses (all male, all middle-aged, all seriously frickin' creepy) with oddly-made 'stethescopes'.

So, the young mouse ran like hell when one of the 'attendants' (their word for 'guards') tried to toss him in there. And then he'd bumped into the woman that he would later practically worship.

Her name was Actucsen, and she stood at a amazingly impressive seven feet and five inches. She was extremely well-muscled and bragged that she could bench-press her own weight. Curiously enough, nobody knew what her weight was.

Actucsen turned around, stared down at him. Throttle had nearly peed his pants in fright when he saw her.

And then, without a word, she'd picked him up gently and bolted for the supply closet. She'd set him in there, behind a shelf filled with food, and spoke to him for the first time, telling him to stay there until she came back to get him.

He stayed there for a whole day, eating a box of sweet wafers and reading the ingredients for fun. When she came back, there were bruises on her knuckles and blood on her chin, and she had a wicked gleam in her eyes that would've frightened the strongest warrior.

From that day on, the little almost-four-foot-tall boy and the hulking warrioress were completely inseparable. Under her care and protection, he actually thrived in the building of horrors, something he couldn't have done without Actucsen.

And when he was twelve, she smuggled him out and took him back to the town he'd grown up in.

The factory was gone, his childhood home was gone, but his most precious possessions were now in a safe location- where, Actucsen wouldn't tell him. Instead, she gave him a photograph of a mouse and told him to 'go fetch'. Then she'd left him on his grandmother's porch.

Even with such a seemingly cold goodbye, Throttle was still immensely grateful to the silvery-beige woman with the spiked mace.


End file.
